Is my dog a faker???

[Jennifer and Jack]

Today I went to clip Jack's nails, let me just say, I use plain old non state of the art clippers. He never really likes me to clip his nails and honestly, I have only managed to clip one or two nails total.

 

Today, I had him on my lap, I had his front paw in my hands, I put the clipper on his nail, I didn't even press down. Not 1 mm and he screamed... He freaked me out. I looked and there wasn't even a mark on his nail. WTD? Do I have a hypochondriac on my hands? His nails need to be trimmed. I wonder if he learned that screaming, like he has the last two times he was hurt got him a lot of attention? Crap if I taught him that.  I have no idea if I am totally humanizing him and I just scared him and as it would turn out Jack is a sissy doodle??

 

What do you think?

[BG and Gavin]

It's always easiest to clip nails after a very long walk and after they have drifted off to sleep.  In other words when they are too worn out to care.  If you only even get one paw done a night that's good.  Jack has had a tough weekend though with all the pain from the fall.  I would skip the nails for a week or two.

[Barb @ Gemstone Labradoodles]

Dogs will learn to scream to make you stop. I have met many like this. The trick is to not jump or stop. Very difficult, but if you stop you reinforce the idea in the dog's head they can get their way.

[Bug]

you could make him a doggy nail file and not need to use nail clippers anymore! http://www.shirleychong.com/keepers/nailfile.html

[Mara, Sadie & Zoe]

My bishon would do the screaming thing. It took me a while to catch on that she was faking. But the groomer eventually caught on as well. She would scream and usually whoever was grooming her would stop what they were doing. We started to notice that she would scream and no one actually touched her, get just close enough to touch her and she would scream. The jig was up, but she still tried to get her way!

[Kate C Pappas]

If you didn't have the clippers on this nail ready to cut, you didn't hurt him. He was probably startled. Don't let him win. My girls hate having their nails done and I've quicked them both and feel soooo guilty.